Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
MARK
The sun streamed through the bedroom window just after seven, and Mark held a hand to his throbbing head. He was too old to be knocking back the whiskies and wondered how the hell Alice had managed to keep up and stay awake until almost midnight.
In a break between card games, he had asked Alice more about her life here. But she just told him she had been a teenager when the family moved elsewhere. He had learnt no more, as she thrashed him in the next game. She’d won a total of thirty quid from him over the poker games.
But Alice had pushed her winnings into his hand at the front door, saying she only ever played for fun, and he remembered that she had only upped the stakes at his insistence. He wouldn’t make the same mistake next time. He hoped there would be a next time.
After a cold shower, Mark wandered outside to the garden he shared with Alice and as he assessed the lawn, a feeling of shame washed over him.
He took in the overgrown grass with clusters of dandelions poking through.
Glazed pots stood forlornly against the fence and withered flowers that once bloomed with colour stared back at him.
A stone bird bath that he and Di had chosen together at a garden centre was covered in moss.
Diane had been the gardener. She would be mad at him if she could see it now.
‘Sorry, Di.’ He looked heavenward as he let out a deep sigh, vowing to sort it out.
Heading inside, he swallowed down a large glass of water and two paracetamols, before flicking the kettle on.
Cupping his tea in his hands, he thought about last night’s dinner party.
The people in the block really were a nice bunch of people.
Different in many ways, but they had chatted easily enough, which he was relieved about.
Diane would have breezed through it regardless – she was the extrovert in their partnership.
She would have doted on Maisie and would have loved chatting to Jess and Declan.
And she would have been fascinated by Alice.
Why had it taken a woman of such advanced years to bring the residents of the apartments together?
he wondered. Was that the world they now lived in?
Sure, the people in the block would say a quick hello in greeting, but usually on the way in or out, as they got on with their busy lives.
People minded their own business, too busy to stop and chat so as not to disrupt their carefully planned routine.
And he had been caught up in his own grief.
As a young boy he remembered his mother chatting to the other women in the street at the weekend, even pulling out chairs to the front and watching their kids playing in the street whilst they had a cup of tea and a natter in the fine weather.
Last time he had walked down the road there had not been a child in sight.
There were no groups of children playing on scooters or bikes, every leisure pursuit organised by their parents.
Even trips to the park had to be supervised by an adult.
He thought of how he would run to the park to see his friends when he was young and wondered when and why the world had become so terrifying.
Two of his friends had escorted him home one day, when he fell straight onto concrete from some metal climbing bars, the blood pouring from his head.
No soft wood chippings to land on back then.
Not that he thought that was a good thing, but somehow it had gone too far the other way.
Kids were wrapped in cotton wool, destined to fall apart at the first problem they would encounter in their later years.
Di would tease him when he forgot something, telling him that the bang on the head as a kid probably had something to do with it.
Maybe it did. Things were never investigated when he was a kid, unless you were knocked out cold.
He did not think he would have survived thirty years as an active firefighter had there been anything wrong, though, despite his wife’s teasing.
An hour later, after his painkillers had kicked in, along with a bacon sandwich and another cup of strong tea – his go-to hangover cure – he felt ready to face the day.
It was another pleasant morning, and he briefly considered taking his boat out. It was always mad busy on a Saturday at the marina, though, and he wasn’t sure if he was quite up to all the social activity.
He went inside and rifled through a drawer in the kitchen that was full of odds and ends. Nuts and bolts mainly, a couple of buttons, some silver coins, and a few keys. One of them was the key to the garden shed that contained the gardening tools, so he picked it up and strolled outside.
He found himself wondering if the garden might be a good place for a get-together. That was if anyone would be interested. He had enjoyed himself at Alice’s dinner far more than he imagined he would, although maybe hosting something would be a bit much. He would have a think about it.
Either way, it was high time he got the garden sorted. And there was no time like the present.